What are the best methods for accurately representing your concept in a prototype?

In the grand ballroom of innovation, fidelity leads the waltz between dreams and reality. Low-fidelity, the wallflower of simplicity, sketches the dance floor's blueprint. With paper and pen, it's a flirtation with ideas—no frills, just the promise of potential. High-fidelity, the belle of sophistication, dons the digital gown. Interactive, polished, a vision in pixels—this prototype demands attention and scrutiny. Choosing fidelity is choosing your dance partner for the innovation soirée. Will it be the playful twirl of sketches or the refined elegance of pixels? The dance begins, and innovation pirouettes between the tangible and the imagined.

As innovation facilitator of 100+ projects, I advise you to EXPERIMENT BY PRETOTYPING, like TESLA… FAKE IT BEFORE YOU MAKE IT ???. Pretotyping is a technique for testing - and validating ideas quickly and cheap, founded by Savoia. It involves creating a simplified version of a product or service to collect user feedback and understand market demand. It’s a non-working prototype. Pretotyping reduces the risk of failure by assessing market response early in the development process. A famous pretotyping story is how Tesla ‘faked’ their first electrical car, the Roadster, using a so-called ‘glider’ of a Lotus Elise to confront their potential customers with a ‘real car’, leading to 250+ launching customers who paid $ 5000,- in advance.

The level of fidelity in a prototype is pivotal. I've found that aligning the fidelity with the stage of development is key. Low-fidelity prototypes are fantastic for early-stage validation, especially to test core functionality and usability. As your concept matures, transitioning to high-fidelity prototypes becomes crucial for scrutinizing the finer details, ensuring a seamless user experience. It's all about striking that balance!

To get the right kind of feedback from potential customers, you have to make your idea real in some way. In the early stages of customer discovery, a paper prototype will do. As you refine your concept with the learning you gain from the plan, do, study, and act cycles of learning, your prototype level can evolve alongside using that learning. Any tool that helps rapid prototyping (depending on the product/service) will be valuable to this evolution. All of this leads up to a minimum viable prototype that can truly convey the nature of your product or service. But that detailed level of prototype should not be your first. You need the customer to discover cycles of learning to allow for flexibility in your idea.

The discipline of prototyping from Low Fidelity to High Fidelity, varies across the process. In the beginning it's important to keep it simple and have a low fidelity prototype so that the reiterations are done quickly to bring the prototype to an Alpha Prototype. Managing the resources in prototyping is part of a strategy in Design Thinking approach to Innovation.

One thing I've found helpful is to get into a discussion to decide on what will be the Prototyping Format. Having a healthy discussion with an interdisciplinary team will somehow create clarity on choosing the prototype format.

The goal, audience, environment, and activities determine the format. If you're in a gala dinner for external stakeholders where they are wearing formal attires - and you would like to show them something exciting product when you have nothing much, show them a video of the future vision of what the product could do. You're probably not gonna show paper prototypes. If the audiences are your early adopters, invite them for a working session to co-create your mockups, clay models, get the hands active. Show participation.

Hold up, prototypers! Format isn't a casual wardrobe choice; it's your superhero cape in the design arena. Storyboard? It's not a coloring book; it's a blockbuster script. Mockup? It's not a doodle; it's the Mona Lisa of static design. Video? It's not a home movie; it's an action-packed blockbuster. Website? It's not a homepage; it's the digital kingdom of simulation. Choosing a format? It's not a multiple-choice test; it's a strategy meeting where every option is a weapon. If your prototype format isn't a fireworks show, you might be handing out sparklers. Time to turn your prototypes into a design blockbuster, not just a silent movie.

I agree with others here when they say the type of product or service, the audience, and the goal of the prototype testing will determine your format. The use of generative tools that have recently been introduced in so many different tools can help you create some outstanding displays that demonstrate your concept. It's critical that you understand the psychology of your target audience so your demonstration connects with them regardless of the format used.

Scope, the tightrope of prototyping precision. But what if we turned it into a tightrope walk on a tornado? Whole product? How about a snippet of chaos, leaving them hungry for more? Specific feature? Make it a sneak peek, a teaser trailer of unpredictability. Key aspect? Turn it into a mystery novel—let them uncover the plot twist. Define based on research? Embrace the rebel within; let intuition lead the way. Prioritize important elements? How about juggling dynamite; make it risky, make it memorable. In this circus of creativity, scope isn't a boundary; it's the electrifying edge of prototype insurgency.

Beware of scope creep, it will almost happen all the time, and it's your job to draw the line, and have a very good explanation to maintain the scope. But be open to others' opinions - and discern whether to creep-in the scope, change the scope or maintain the scope.

My best advice here is that you concentrate on demonstrating and getting feedback on discrete portions of your concept rather than attempt to put the entirety of your concept into development. I can assure you that the learning you gain during these smaller discrete exercises in the early stages will lead to changes in the original concept. There is a saying that no business plan survives contact with the customer; it's the same for your original concept; rarely do you start at the same concept that you end up creating.

This goes back to the audiences, environment, and goals. You probably are not going to show LEGO structures and run your scenarios there when presenting to the board or public event. Discern what medium is appropriate for the context.

Medium: the prototyping artist's palette. But, in this array of choices, are we sometimes getting lost in the tools, forgetting the masterpiece? Paper, cardboard—the humble beginnings, but do they risk overshadowing the concept itself? In this dance with mediums, let's not forget that it's not just about the tools; it's about bringing ideas to life. Yes, factor in, but let it be a thoughtful choice, not just a default. Because, in the realm of prototyping, true success comes not just from advanced tools but from choosing the medium that turns your concept into a tangible, meaningful creation—a balance between tools and the creative vision that makes your prototype truly powerful.

Once again I have to agree with others in this group. The medium has to address what you feel will have the most effect on the audience so they connect with the concept. You can be creative at this stage. Sometimes, to open people's minds to new concepts, you must create stimulus by using mediums that knock them out of their predetermined thought patterns. It's the reason some of the music or movies you remember the most are the ones that surprise your mind. Use the diversity of your team to come up with great ideas about how to mix mediums for maximum effect.

Iteration is the heartbeat of progress. I can't stress enough how crucial it is to refine your prototype continually. Learning from feedback and mistakes, documenting each step, and keeping that feedback loop active is what elevates a concept into a viable product. It's not just about planning, building, and testing; it's about evolving, learning, and repeating to create something truly remarkable.

They say if you’re operating a startup you got to “move fast break things”. The modus operandi emphasizes on speed of iteration. But at what cost? At the cost of iteration. ?? Before considering to build, consider the cost of iteration which will impact the speed of iteration. Move fast, but don’t break your own things.

You will not succeed without using plan, do, study, and act cycles of learning about your concept and then applying that learning to your prototypes. Full stop. That's a statistical fact. The worst thing you can do is attempt to over-engineer your early-stage prototypes. In doing so, you can easily confuse what the feedback you receive actually means about your concept. If programmers change too many lines of code to attempt to fix a bug, they take ten times the amount of time to figure out what the root cause of the error was. Test smaller discrete portions of your concept in each iteration.

Evaluation is the compass guiding our progress. Defining the right metrics, both qualitative and quantitative, is key. They're not just numbers; they're insights shaping our concept's journey. Adapting evaluation methods based on fidelity, format, and scope ensures we grasp every aspect. It's about understanding the impact deeply, learning from the data, and steering towards excellence.

Prototype is good for beginner or one who do not have inhouse production facility. For a physical Product, best method is alway trial and error and getting feedback from limited number of target audience.

One key aspect followed in JTBD is the role of "Forces of Progress," which outlines the motivations and anxieties customers have when considering a new solution. When prototyping, consider creating iterations that address these forces. This will not only validate the concept but also identify specific features or aspects that resonate with the customer's job to be done. Remember, the goal is to minimize customer anxieties and maximize their motivation to adopt your solution. By applying these JTBD principles in your prototyping, you ensure that your concept aligns closely with the actual needs and behaviours of your target audience, thereby increasing the likelihood of market success.